Shawn Whatley - When Politics Comes Before Patients,

There are no experts in health politics. No one knows it all, although academics know much about their niche. The trouble is, they know so much it silences everyone else. The message is clear: if you hate feeling stupid do not get involved.

But wait a minute. Yes, the topic is big, and experts are scary. But that is precisely why you should dive in. Nudge academic experts near the edge of their niche and watch them panic. They will run back to safety in minutiae designed to intimidate. You will be awed by their recall. Suitably silenced, conversation ends and lectures begin. They now have a bully pulpit from which to write books for colleagues who agree and to dispatch opponents who do not exist. They can tell what is, what shall be, and what to do to get there.

This ruins healthcare. Adults learn from conversation, not lectures. The best conversations bounce opposing ideas back and forth. Each party learns and gives, listens and grows. Canada has lost its healthcare conversation. This book is my attempt to get it back. It falls second in an informal series of three books. It serves up the meat in a sandwich between practical advice in my No More Lethal Waits: Ten Steps to Transform Canadas Emergency Departments, published in 2016, and a third book in the planning. No More Lethal Waits was a short read about change disguised as a book about emergency departments. The last chapter called readers to get political. This book is meant to help them answer that call. But before new solutions (what about funding?), we need new thinking. We must think before we do; chew before we swallow. If we skip the meat offered in this book, the practical advice in book three will make us choke. Book three will be practical a principled how-to book but you need the meal offered here to get that books full nutritional value.

My publisher, Dean Baxendale, has healthcare in his blood. His father published Monique Begins Medicare: Canadas Right to Health, 1987. The book you hold now offers a different view, and still Dean fights for the righ to share it. You might not find a more enthusiastic, generous, and articulate conversationalist.

Don Bastian, editor extraordinaire, is ruthless, kind, and wicked smart. He needed all of it to manage this book. I cannot say how pleased I am with his work and exceptional mind.

Many people read early drafts. I cringed as they nodded through my notes, but I am grateful. Philip Whatley read multiple versions and offered invaluable notes. Matt P. dissected chapters with blunt kindness and keen insight. Matt D. smiled and palpated (hard!) some sore spots. I hope the Matts will heap abuse on me for any advice I did not take. Harley Price and Paul Conte plowed through early drafts and prodded with encouraging questions. Brian Lee Crowley gave the best advice I have ever received about structuring a large project. The whole team at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute David, Brett, Sean, Brian, et al. supported my distraction, though I suspect they wished I had kept my focus on an MLI project they had assigned to me. Bill Gairdner shared energy and advice on writing, publishing, and healthcare: priceless. Bruce Pardy helped with insight from his book Ecolawgic: The Logic of Ecosystems and the Rule of Law, 2015. Andrew Siren and Marko Duic reviewed chapters but, more importantly, endured several years at the foot of my soapbox, helping me develop concepts. Many others, too numerous to mention for example, regular contributors to my blog, www.shawnwhatley.com shared stories and ideas. If you find something familiar in here, I probably learned it from you.

Despite all the help received, know that none of it informed the errors; I came up with those all by myself. This book straddles specialties, surely a warning for fools rushing in and so on.

Finally, I could not function without my family. This is not meant to be quaint or kind. It is fact. I cannot begin and will not try to list all the ways my Mom and Dad deserve credit. My children Lara, Kate, Jonathan, and Emma endured Dad lost in a daydream, sometimes for hours. Accept my apology and gratitude: I love you guys. Most importantly, I must acknowledge Monica: my one, only, and eternal love.